Pinning down illegal porn

By BRIAN WALKER

Staff Writer

POST FALLS — Pornography suspects, beware.

Post Falls Police have added about $40,000 worth of new technology to their computer forensics lab to help crack ever-increasing illegal porn cases and gather evidence from cellphones and computers.

"We're not going away," said Detective Neil Uhrig, who spent five weeks in Alabama this summer on training provided by the U.S. Secret Service for the new equipment. "We're trying to keep up with the offenders and technologies that are out there because they are ever-changing.

"Pornography is unfortunately very prevalent in this country and it requires a lot of forensics work to break a case."

Uhrig said through a North Idaho internet crimes task force consisting of multiple law enforcement agencies, other area departments will be able to use the lab's services.

The new crime-fighting tools include:

- a cellphone reader that allows for data collection from almost every phone on the market and even cracks password codes;

- a forensics workstation that allows for 20 terabytes of storage to examine entire hard drives and features the latest in evidence-protection technology; and

- technology that allows police to detect downloads of illegal images.

While some other local law enforcement agencies have computer forensics labs, Uhrig believes the one at PFPD has the most capabilities in North Idaho.

Uhrig said police don't examine evidence without legal authority or a warrant to do so.

"Sure, there's always going to be concerns about privacy in general, but this is not an intelligence-gathering operation," he said. "Our job is to take evidence and analyze it for the court system."

Uhrig said the lab does not hack into people's computer systems.

"This is information suspects are putting on public networks themselves and we're finding it," he said. "Child pornographers will trade images and essentially we're infiltrating that circle. We can't stop the activity immediately, but we can get a copy of what is going on and use that to develop a case. We'll then get a search warrant to go to their house and stop them there."

Uhrig said the download-detection system tells detectives where the activity is occurring.

He said cases the lab takes on are a combination of being tip-driven and random.

The new technology allows for faster evidence collection and multiple cases to be investigated at once, which means a quicker turnaround, Uhrig said.

"In some places, it may take 18 months for exams because of a backlog," he said. "The nice thing here is that I sometimes can turn it around in days, and it's simpler to use than older technology.

"We've had the ability to download hard drives, but the speed and size we're able to handle now is the big difference. I have yet to come across a computer that we can't analyze due to the amount of space. The faster we can get the information to the courts, the better."

Evidence protection, he said, is also critical.

"It has to be in pristine condition for court purposes, and this has that capability," he said.

Uhrig said the lab's cellphone technology was previously limited. The enhanced capabilities will come in handy for cases ranging from death investigations to drug deals.

"A lot of drug deals involve text communication and we need to extract information to solve cases," he said.

If the cause of a death is unclear, Uhrig said, oftentimes cellphones will offer clues.

"We don't want families to have questions, so sometimes that data will help us answer questions," Uhrig said.

Uhrig said the technology has increased the types of crimes that can be investigated. For example, it can examine cases involving gas pump skimmers.

"When we had those cases in 2015, we had to send the information to a lab in Seattle for analysis," he said.

Since Uhrig returned from Alabama on Aug. 15, he has performed 23 forensic exams. His current caseload also includes exams from Shoshone and Boundary counties and the Office of Attorney General's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

Uhrig's work is divided between the computer forensics lab and routine detective work.

Funding for the new technology was provided by the U.S. Secret Service and a grant from the Idaho AG's office.

"With the exception of paying my wages for training, Post Falls taxpayers didn't have to pay for it," Uhrig said.

Illegal porn cases are growing at a faster pace than the government can provide training and equipment to battle, Uhrig said.

"There is a shortage of people in our area who are trained in computer forensics," he said. “It took me three years to get into the Secret Service program because there is such a demand nationwide. The Secret Service is trying to get more funding for classes, so hopefully that happens."